TEST DRIVE MEME 001 (#2)

[happyheartsstaff]

HAPPY HEARTS HOTEL

You wake up in a padded box. It rocks, gently, as though suspended in mid-air. You begin to stir, confusion or distress pushing you to try to sit up — and then the air begins to smell sweet, and you fall back asleep.

You wake up in a padded box. For a moment, you are beatifically calm. You don't know how you got here, or why, but that isn't really all that important. You don't need to know where you are. You're just... here. And here is a wonderful place to be.

But there is a niggling suspicion growing in the back of your mind. A suspicion that here is not somewhere you wanted to be. That it is not where you're supposed to be. You remember... chasing a white rabbit (or was it a person)? A mirror? Bright light, and green ivy crawling over your skin... Before you can worry too much, the box jolts, and then settles, and after a long moment the walls fall from around you to reveal —

A hotel lobby?

"Welcome to the Happy Hearts Hotel and Casino," says an attendant behind a desk. "We're so pleased you could join us for our grand opening gala. We have your room keys and Empathies here, please make an orderly line and we'll hand them out once we've confirmed identities. After that, feel free to explore the hotel! We highly recommend starting with the casino. Everyone's a winner here in Happy Hearts!"

Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal. And hey — you could swear you had shoes before!

I. THE CASINO FLOOR

As you pass through the entrance to the casino floor, an attendant passes you a small bag of chips. The casino is loud and bright and filled with games of every kind — you want to play poker? They've got a table for that. Sabacc? There's a table for that, too. Slots, pachinko, and bingo are just a few of the other games on offer. The attendant in the lobby wasn't lying, either — everyone who plays wins. Everyone, every time.

Servers wander the floor with trays of shotglasses full of multi-coloured liquids, offering them to every Oyster "Compliments of Her Royal Highness." If you're expecting alcohol, though, you'll be surprised — these drinks are teas made of the distilled emotions of every Oyster in the hotel. Each colour of tea corresponds to a different emotion, and as soon as you take a sip, you feel overcome with that emotion.

JOY — the distilled essence of happiness, this tea makes even the most rough and tumble of Oysters giddy with happiness — for a moment. The effect fades into a general sense of contentment and affability after a few seconds, and that itself fades away slowly over the course of twenty minutes.

ANGER — this tea, anger in liquid form, can make the most even-tempered of Oysters ready to absolutely blow a gasket. For twenty minutes, anyone who drinks this tea will find themselves much more easily annoyed, frustrated, and all around irritable and snappy.

SADNESS — distilled sadness is a potent tea, capable of turning a stoic, stalwart Oyster into a blubbering mess in moments. Events that may have previously only been a minor disappointment become the end of the world, every repressed unhappiness comes to the fore, and for twenty minutes, any Oyster who drinks a sadness tea can hardly keep themselves together.

II. MAKING WAVES

If gambling isn't to your interest, there are many other areas of the hotel to explore! For the moment, only The Pool Of Tears and the Pig & Pepper Buffet are available for Oysters to peruse, but the staff assure anyone who asks that the other facilities will be open by the next day. Unfortunately, that means no one can buy any swimsuits from This Elegant Thimble, but the staff aren't going to kick anyone out of the pool for jumping in in their clothes!

There are four main attractions to The Pool of Tears: the pool, the jacuzzi, the wave pool, and the lazy river. The water is always just the right temperature, clean and clear and refreshing. It feels as if the sun shines down from above you, warm and comforting. Scattered through the pool area are clusters of modern lounge chairs, just waiting for someone to come relax in them. The Pool is, in a word, serene.

But not for long. The waves generated by the wave pool begin to get choppier, and larger, until it becomes clear that the generator itself is malfunctioning — too late, however, to avoid the tsunami that crashes through the whole Pool and leaves it flooded. Thankfully, no water escapes into the rest of the hotel, and the hotel staff work quickly to rescue those trapped in the Pool and drain the flooding — but you better hope you can tread water until they get to you!

III. EAT ME, DRINK ME

The Pig & Pepper buffet serves lunch foods from across all different cultures, offering something for everyone, and some things you've never even heard of.

On offer with these lunchtime dishes are cookies and biscuits and scones of all kinds, held on tiered trays with signs that proclaim Eat Me! in delightfully whimsical calligraphy. Nearby, hotel staff man a small booth for doling out cups of fruit waters from large pitchers, which have Drink Me! painted playfully on their sides.

It takes a while to feel the effects — perhaps you've even left the Pig & Pepper by the time it happens — but those who eat the cookies and scones inevitably end up growing in size, whether a few inches or feet, and those who drank the fruity water similarly shrink. Eat enough and you might strain the ceiling; drink enough and you'll be the size of a thimble! It's not permanent — if no one else can help you figure out how to get back to normal, the staff certainly will — but it's definitely inconvenient!

IV. WELCOME HOME

Maybe you just want to be alone — well, that's what you have your room key for! Oysters room on the second and third floors of the hotel, one to a room. You were assured your room would be exactly what you'd always wished for — and for some, that's right! It's exactly as you would have decorated it yourself. But for others, their rooms are totally wrong. A grizzled cowboy can't have a pink room! Hotel staff are firm, though: every room is exactly as its owner wants it to be. Search your feelings, Oyster. You know it to be true.

On each bed are the Oysters' personal effects, minus weapons, as well as a towel folded in the shape of a heart, and a single foil-wrapped chocolate. If eaten, the chocolate is delicious, and incites a feeling of tender warmth in Oysters — not lust, but a desire for closeness. Why spend time in your room, when you could go find a new friend in the casino?

Welcome to the (second!) first TDM of Happy Hearts, a new panfandom roleplaying game here on DW! If you have any questions, please direct them to the first comment on this page. Happy playing, Oysters!

PREMISE RULES FAQ TAKEN RESERVES APPLICATION MOD CONTACT HIATUS & DROPS WORLD INFO NPCS CALENDAR AC REWARDS

© tessisamess

Comments

[inlovewithmycar]

Oh I've never worn a pair of shoes in my life. Awful things. Just looking out for the health and safety of you lot. Worse than rats with spreading diseases.

And I meant more their plans for us. I got nothing. Fresh out of ideas. Normally I'd just snap myself out of this mess, but that's obviously not an option anymore.

[grudged]

[...this conversation is beginning to get weird. And it already started off that way, with mentions of Heaven and eternity, so that's saying something.]

I don't believe parlor tricks are the best way to solve this dilemma.

Unless you have something truly special to share with the class.

[inlovewithmycar]

Nothing useful to share. They seemed to have taken anything useful. Which is pretty peculiar in and of itself. Don't exactly have a physiology normal people can just go in and tinker with like you'd change a car's oil.

So I reckon that should tell you that whoever's brought us here has some pretty Godlike capabilities.

[ The mantra please don't be thick, please don't make me spell it out goes off repeatedly in Crowley's head. ]

[grudged]

I don't believe in God.

[FATALITY.]

[inlovewithmycar]

[ Crowley is just grinning cheerfully down at his Empathy. Mate, neither does he, for a certain measure of belief. ]

That's the spirit.

[ Alas, Crowley is a demon and not a twinkly little fairy (except on Saturday evenings at The Karaoke Hole) and he won't just vanish if you won't clap your hands and believe in his (admittedly kind of shitty) Mum. ]

But whatever you do or don't believe is pretty irrelevant; they're capable of things they really ought not be capable of.

[grudged]

Man has conquered God, where I'm from.

You should see the things I'm capable of.

So to speak.

[...way to backtrack, Char.]

[inlovewithmycar]

Jolly good. Glad to hear it. Always knew the mortals had it in 'em. Feels good to know I placed my bets on a winning horse the second time 'round.

Now.

On topic. Getting out of here? Any brilliant ideas on how to conquer a magical casino with no way out? Should be a cakewalk if you've done and conquered Herself.

[grudged]

Well, I had a giant robot.

I appear to have misplaced it somewhere.

[inlovewithmycar]

I'm sure they've got it tucked away somewhere. Seems like the kind of place that would have valet parking.

[grudged]

I'm a valet kind of guest, so one would think.

Maybe you can snap your fingers and find it for me.

You would be compensated, naturally.

[inlovewithmycar]

Did you miss the part where I said that's not really an option? I'm cut off from my usual abilities. Dunno how they did that.

[grudged]

Sarcasm translates poorly through text.

But I wasn't kidding about compensation, if you can find my pretty paperweight.

[inlovewithmycar]

Uh huh.

Define compensation, and I might be inclined to keep my eyes peeled for a giant robot.

[grudged]

What is it that you desire most in the world?

Patron of Heaven.

[inlovewithmycar]

Mate you got me a bit backwards. Haven't been a patron of Heaven for a very long time. Try the other place, though these days I'm in their bad books too.

Well.

Worse books.


That being said, I did have my eye on the 25th anniversary box set of The Golden Girls before getting dragged here. Just saying.

[grudged]

[Who are the girls, and why are they golden? How have they managed to exist for so many... err, twenty-five years?! Did they not age? Did they only know an eternal hell, watching their friends and loved ones die as they remained the same? Surely, this requires further analysis. Or just sassing.]

Is that some form of compact disc?

Isn't that a little outdated, old man?

[...yeah, just the sassing part, apparently.]

[inlovewithmycar]

[ Crowley does enjoy a bit of sass. ]

Digitial's nice and all, but there's a certain magic of having physical copies that come packaged in a cardboard box shaped like an old lady's handbag.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for the classics.

[grudged]

You're woefully decrepit.

But fine. I'll get you what you want.

I don't expect my Zaku will be lurking in open sight, so for now, just keep your eyes open.

Assuming you can still see out of them, anyway.

[inlovewithmycar]

You have no idea.

So what does Zaku look like? Just what constitutes the giant in giant robot?

And yes, my eyes work fine. Other senses are a bit fuzzy, but I'm nothing if not adaptable.

[grudged]

You're quite curious for an old timer.

As I told someone else, it looks like a large metal man.

And it's red. And expensive.

Frankly speaking, you'd need more money than God to afford my Zaku.

[inlovewithmycar]

My fatal flaw, I reckon.

You know, you can build robots with any shape, any function, and you build them to look like humans. You lot really do take after Her.

[grudged]

Wouldn't you?

What makes for a better weapon than man himself?

[inlovewithmycar]

Fair point. You lot are pretty destructive.

[ Which is why Crowley has no issue believing the humans triumphed over angels and demons alike. Seven billion of the bloody minded bastards and they're harder to kill than cockroaches. War, Famine, Pestilence and Pollution could never quite do the trick. ]

[grudged]

We've perfected war into an art form, so I could only agree.

[And he is, in fact, in the middle of one now, on top of being responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands, but he'll just leave that part out. Even if he's strongly beginning to suspect this individual would hardly be fazed.

Because even if you're a demon, literal or otherwise, everybody knows there's absolutely no reason to be impolite.]

You should be more mindful of tipping your hand, by the way.

...is what I'd like to say, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.

Lucky you, getting away with such arrogance.

[inlovewithmycar]

[ The slaughter of thousands would, actually, faze him. Not surprise him, no, he's all too aware of how humans are. But he's never had a stomach for violence. ]

I'd be more careful most days, but cat's pretty much out of the bag. Things that'd normally be hidden all out in the open; one look at me, and you'd know anyway, so no point beating around the bush about it. Spare everyone the awkward smalltalk.